During one of my periodic visits to friends yesterday I had the opportunity to watch that horrible contraption, the television. I can’t say that it has made me change my mind about getting one of these things, even though, under German law, I am required to pay for a license for one which I don’t have, but it was interesting.

Photo Source: onnit

I learned something that I didn’t know before – I know, but it does happen now and then – and this new knowledge is something that I wish to share with you: how to hard boil a special kind of Chinese egg.

Oh, but we all know how to boil an egg, don’t we.

Well, yes, but this is special. These are eggs which are sold outside of a normal Chinese shop (in China, I hasten to add) to passersby and are supposed to have medicinal qualities. So, here’s the recipe:

Take your fresh eggs and boil them for about ten minutes. Once you’ve boiled them enough take all the eggs out, crack them slightly and boil them for a further twelve hours. This allows the fluid to enter the egg and add its flavor. When offering them for sale, keep them boiling so that your customers can enjoy a hot, specially prepared, Chinese egg on the way to work, on the way home, or just so.

Nothing special about that, you may well say, but for the fact that I’ve left out one small ingredient. We boil our eggs in water, as do the Chinese, normally. Except these eggs are boiled in special water, water which has been ‘passed by the management’ so to speak.

These eggs are boiled, from start to finish, in urine.

Now, doesn’t that make your prospective breakfast eggs taste so much better?